More About the Moleskine

What could be more endearing to the budding writer or artist than an item used by Van Gogh, Picasso, and Hemingway?

Yes, that's what I thought, the moment I saw my first Moleskine® notebook. Though I love art and have dabbled in oil paints, it was Hemingway who drew me to the Moleskine®. It gave me visions of sitting in a sidewalk cafe in Paris, jotting notes or sketching the Eiffel Tower from afar. Or sitting in an apartment lit by one window, at a table with only a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. Complete and total Romance.

In the secret little back pocket of every Moleskine®, you'll find a booklet about this marvel. There you'll find its history written in six languages:

Moleskine is the legendary notebook used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin. This trusty, pocket-size travel companion held skketches, notes, stories and ideas before they were turned into famous images or pages of beloved books.

Originally produced by small French bookbinders who supplied the Parisian stationery shops frequented by the international avant-garde, by the end of the twentieth century the Moleskine notebook was no longer available. In 1986, the last manufacturer of Moleskine, a family operation in Tours, closed its shutters forever. "le vrai Moleskine n'est plus" were the lapidary words of the owner of the stationery shop in Rue de l'Ancienne Comedie where Chatwin stocked up on the notebooks. The English writer had ordered a hundred of them before leaving for Australia: he bought up all the Moleskine that he could find, but they were not enough.

In 1998, a small Milanese publisher brought Moleskine back again. As the self-effacing keeper of an extraordinary tradition, Moleskine once again began to travel the globe. To capture reality on the move, pin down details, impress upon paper unique aspects of experience: Moleskine is a reservoir of ideas and feelings, a battery that stores discoveries and perceptions, and whose energy can be tapped over time.

The legendary black notebook is once again being passed from one pocket to the next; with its various different page styles it accompanies the creative professions and the imagination of our time. The adventure of Moleskine continues, and its still-blank pages will tell the rest.

With such a rich history behind it, don't you think you deserve one, too? Even if you don't think of yourself as a writer or artist (who among us isn't?), you won't regret having a Moleskine. If nothing else, it will give you a place to gather autographs, like the genuine signature I got from Country artist Josh Turner before he made it big. I think he really liked me. Or maybe he just wanted my Moleskine.